A Piece of UConn History, Rededicated

On a day in late September more than a century ago, not long after the end of World War I, a football player for the school that would later become UConn named Gardner Dow was badly hurt on the field during an away game against what is now the University of New Hampshire. He died hours later, likely due to a traumatic brain injury. Dow’s death stunned the then-tiny Storrs campus, and all lighthearted student programming was canceled for the next three days to reflect a period of mourning.

On October 1, 1919, the day of Dow’s funeral, the students, faculty, and staff of Connecticut Agricultural College gathered in Hawley Armory in his honor. The president at the time, Charles Beach, described the 20-year-old New Haven native as “a friend, a scholar, and a gentleman.” The football team placed flowers on an empty chair noting his absence. The 1920 yearbook would be dedicated to him.

Not long after his death, the college football field, which sat between Hawley Armory and what is today Hillside Road, was named in his honor: Gardner Dow Field. A plaque noting this was later placed on one of the armory’s arches (it had arches then). For the next few decades, our football games continued to be played there, and other sports used the field, too. But eventually that section of core campus was apparently deemed to be valuable real estate, and Homer Babbidge Library was built on the site in the 1970s. Later, so was the old UConn Co-Op, the Information Technologies Engineering Building, the School of Business, and Herbst Hall. After Hawley’s arches were taken down, the Gardner Dow plaque was relegated to the rear of the building, where it sat tucked away for years, affixed to the bricks to the left of the back door, above some vents and a utility box. A few years ago, it was moved inside. The event that had jolted the small college in 1919 had over the years not surprisingly dimmed in the collective consciousness of the now enormous, sprawling campus.

One of the great things about a place like UConn is its history. But to survive, it has to be preserved by people who care about it. In this case, University Communications editorial associate Mike Enright, who is the curator of the J. Robert Donnelly Husky Heritage Sports Museum in the Alumni House at UConn Storrs, had the 105-year-old, bronze Gardner Dow Field plaque refurbished and planned a rededication. In December, members of the Dow family came to see the plaque take its place in the museum, helping to rescue the artifact and the story behind it from a gradual fade into obscurity.